Zomato, Swiggy join hands with the government to deliver street food under new PM SVANidhi scheme

Online food ordering platform Zomato on Thursday announced that it will tie up with  street food vendors across 6 cities of India under the Prime Minister Street Vendor”s AtmaNibhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) scheme.

The exchange of MoU was signed between Mission Director of PM SVANidhi in the Ministry, and Vice President of Zomato.

The PM SVANidhi Scheme was launched under the ambit of ‘AtmaNirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’. It aims at facilitating collateral free working capital loans upto Rs 10,000 of 1 year tenure, to about 50 lakh street vendors in the urban areas, including those from the surrounding peri-urban/ rural areas, to resume their businesses post COVID-19 lockdown.

In a first of its kind initiative, MoHUA entered into an MoU with Swiggy on October 5 last year and it is now joining hands with Zomato to empower street food vendors with digital technology.

The MoHUA has coordinated with the key stakeholders including Municipal Corporations, fssai, Zomato and GST officials to ensure that street food vendors are facilitated in completing the necessary prerequisites for this initiative.

According to the release, this initiative will give street food vendors online access to thousands of consumers and will also help them grow their businesses.

The release said that the Covid-19 pandemic has restricted consumers from stepping out and forced them to follow physical distancing norms. In the given scenario it is important to connect Street Food Vendors with technology enabled platforms to help them grow their business, thus helping them gain financially.